I just finished reading another entry on Jeff Jarvis' site regarding some of the latest developments on the FCC/Clear Channel/Howard Stern/free speech clusterfuck.

Michael Copps sounds like a fuckwit.

How right is it that one of the great evils of American Culture--Clear Channel--is up against the ropes, and yet, how terribly wrong is it that it's for all the wrong reasons?

Fuck.

Fuck!

FUCK!!!

How it pains me that I'm somehow stuck on the side of Clear Channel, even as I think it's idiotic and that Howard Stern is unlistenable idiocy, and Clear Channel is guilty of pulling a Sherman's march across radio nationwide, and that virtually all of this crap should be something like common sense and dealt with like adults who have common sense, thereby obviating regulation by a Federal Nanny Manners agent with a big fucking stick threatening people left and right with half million dollar fines (oh god how nice it would be to see Clear Channel drained of every last cent and put out of business, and yet, how fundamentally wrong it is that they should have to pay even a cent to Michael Powell's minions)...and then there are idiots like Ruth Seymour right here in our very own sunny haha it's 90 degrees in March Los Angeles who not only yelp "how high" but do it before the Michael Copps of the world even remotely begin to think about telling some sanctimonious little NPR affiliate broadcasting out of a city college by the beach to jump (full disclosure: this radio station has played my music).

Matt Welch--eminently more composed than I--has lots more on all this, especially the local angle. Start up top and scroll down. Note therein that the spine-eating cancer has spread to my other favorite local NPR affiliate, KPCC.

[sigh] This is all terribly dispiriting. Would that radio be the carefree place of fun and adventure and personality and *sensible* attitude, like back when Jim Ladd was on KMET and Rodney did his thing on KROQ back when Black Flag was new, and you could listen to John Peel--the reigning world heavyweight ultimate ninja master of radio DJs (full disclosure: he has played my music)--on KXLU (which, probably, if I could pick it up here, is the only radio station left in LA worth listening to, outside of maybe KLON except that their programming is much too middle-of-the-road and slightly too-beholden-to-promotion-for-latest-releases-on-labels for my tastes)...

Yay intemperance!

Up with freedumb!

Down with runon sentences and parentheses!

Give "fuck" a chance!

I was reading up on this due to the NPR comments about fines coming - etc. It's the wrong people behind the wrong ideas. I don't think there's a problem with a lot of things being in the media... while I can dig into well-studied media conglomerates playing on the fears and temptations of people in trying to develop super-consumers - at least half of the 'problem in media' is the consumer. Having artistically valueless prurient excretory and sexual discussion off the airwaves isnt' a bad thing in itself - it is part of the fuel on the fire of our social problems - (and it wastes space that could be filled with the new Palette release of k which is very nice thank you) HOWEVER - it's awful to think that it's just power leveraging itself in a perverse way to achieve its own ends... I read on the ADA website some probing question to its readers - "Have you ever been tempted by seeing etc. etc. the temptation of mastur8ation etc. etc. So get this filth off the half-time show because it makes me hot." essentially "Please hide the food, hide the drink, and the sex because I can not control myself in its presence and I become a sinner (which I'm normally not). "

I, myself, think it only shows the strength of individuals and a society if, in the face of an assault of images trying to guide our psychological and social development, that we are able to make those messages impotent in the marketplace of ideas. You can try to tell me that colt 45 will get me laid every time, but I know that it won't and that becoming alocoholic will more likely reduce my sexual performance, let alone my attractiveness to the opposite sex... Water on ice thanks. Change the channel or maybe listen a bit and have a meaningful conversation with someone (maybe your child) about why what they are hearing can hurt the society they are in and talk about why it exists and what can be done about it.

Posted by: bstalz at March 14, 2004 08:07 AM